Melchior, Georges

(1889-1944)

   Actor. Georges Melchior was one of the great screen actors of the silent era. He began his career at Pathé, where he appeared in Albert Capellani's L'Envieuse (1911), but he went almost immediately to rival Gaumont, where he remained for a number of years. While at Gaumont, Melchior worked closely with Louis Feuillade, appearing in such films as L'Attrait du bouge (1912), Le Maléfice (1912), Le Valet de coeur (1913), Un drame au Pays Basque (1913), S'affranchir (1913), L'Agonie de Byzance (1913), Les Millions de la bonne (1913), La Marche des rois (1913), La Rencontre (1914), La Petite Andalouse (1914), Manon de Montmartre (1914), Les Lettres (1914), Pâques rouges (1914), and Feuillade's legendary Fantômas series (1913-1914), in which Melchior played journalist Jérome Fandor alongside Edmond Bréon and René Navarre. Beyond his work with Feuillade, Melchior was also a favorite of director René Le Somptier who cast him in Grand-maman (1912), Fleur fanée . . . coeur aimé (1913), Un drame de l'air (1913), Le Pressentiment (1914), Le Monde renversé (1914), La Fille du caissier (1914), Chef d'école (1914), Le Pont des enfers (1916), and Aubade à Sylvie (1917). Other films in which he appeared at Gaumont include Henri Fescourt's L'Amazone masquée (1912), Les Deux médaillons (1913), Le Départ dans la nuit (1913), and La Voix qui accuse (1913), and Gaston Ravel's L'Amoureuse aventure (1914).

   Melchior left Gaumont in 1917 and went out on his own. He appeared in a number of other silent films, including René Hervil and Louis Mercanton's Mères françaises (1917), Jacques Feyder's classic silent film L'Atlantide (1920), Julien Duvivier's Les Roquevillard (1922), Gaston Roudès's Le Lac d'argent (1922), Les Rantzau (1923), Le Petit moineau de Paris (1923), and La Maison au soleil (1928), Donatien'sMon curé chez les riches (1925), Florine, la fleur du Valois (1926), and Au revoir et merci (1927), codirected with Pierre Colombier, Léon Abrams and Mercanton's La Voyante (1923), Le Somptier's La Forêt qui tue (1925) and Le P'tit Parigot (1926), Jean Choux's La Terre qui meurt (1926), Guiseppe Guarino's Le Marchand de bonheur (1926) and Casque blanche . . . Toque noire (1927), André Hugon's La Vestale du Gange (1927), Marcel Dumont and Roudès's La Dédale (1927), Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant's La Sirène des tropiques (1927), and Georges Pallu's La Petite soeur des pauvres (1928).

   Melchior attempted to transition into sound film in the 1930s, but he was never the actor in a sound film that he was on the silent screen. He had roles in a handful of films, including Jean Godard's Pour un soir. ..! (1931), Pallu's La Vierge du rocher (1932), Charles-Félix Tavano's Le Billet de logement (1932), Maurice Champreux's Le Grand bluff (1933), and Marcel L'Herbier's La Citadelle du silence (1937), which was his final film.

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins